5-Methyl-10,11-dihydro-5H-dibenzo[a,d]cyclohepten-5,10-imine (MK-801) and many derivatives thereof are the subject of U.S. Pat. No. 4,399,141 of Anderson et al., the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. The principle clinical utility of MK-801 has been shown to be anticonvulsant. It also has been reported to be an NMDA antagonist useful in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.
Now with the present invention there are provided new hydroxy- and fluoro-derivatives of MK-801 in which the substituents are on non-benzenoid carbons, one of the derivatives being a major mammalian metabolite of MK-801. These new derivatives are also anticonvulsants and NMDA antagonists useful in the prevention and/or treatment of neurodegeneration in pathological conditions such as stroke, hypoglycaemia, cerebral palsy, transient cerebral ischaemic attack, cerebral ischaemia during cardiac pulmonary surgery or cardiac arrest, perinatal asphyxia, epilepsy, Huntington's chorea, Alzheimer's disease, Olivo-pontocerebellar atrophy, anoxia such as from drowning, spinal cord injury and poisoning by exogenous NMDA poisons (e.g. some forms of lathyrism).